Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Toda's (mostly) political news. Syria fading

As predicted, less on Syria today. By next week, it will be forgotten, Assad will still be in power, Putin will be stronger, Syrians will still be dying, both sides will still be evil, and someone will nominate Obama for another Peace Prize for not bombing Syria like the evil Republicans McCain and Graham wanted him to. ~Bob

Excerpt: I haven't written to you in a while. At least not since my television broke down, my toaster developed a taste for human flesh and my phone company ran away with my phone number to Mexico. Rachel Maddow says we're both on the right and are really close together. But then again Rachel Maddow also says the Republican Party drinks the blood of small children. So she can be a little factually challenged on occasion.

Excerpt: Proponents of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) hoped it would achieve near-universal coverage. Yet, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that the ACA will cover less than half of the uninsured. A decade from now (2023), long after the ACA is fully implemented, the CBO estimates it will only cover about 25 million people who would otherwise be uninsured, leaving 31 million people uninsured. Following are some of the reasons why ObamaCare will not solve the uninsured crisis.

Excerpt: The generic drug market has typically been viewed at the wholesale level as a competitive market with price approaching marginal costs. However, the large presence of third party payers as final purchasers (e.g., Medicaid) may distort prices at the retail level relative to what a standard model of price competition would predict, say Abby Alpert, Mark Duggan and Judith K. Hellerstein, researchers with the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Excerpt: But starting in 2016, the office projected, deficits will rise again as more baby boomers begin drawing from Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid’s long-term care benefits.

By 2023, the annual deficit would rise to an estimated 3.5 percent of the gross domestic product, which is just beyond the level that many economists consider sustainable in a growing economy. By 2038, it would be 6.5 percent. (Who knew? Okay, the guy who wrote The Coming Collapse of the American Republic, but who else? http://tiny.cc/g02s4 ~Bob.

Excerpt: Ritrovato went on to explain that two of them had a close relationship based in part on their differences, specifically race and politics. Alexis was black, Ritrovato is white. Ritrovato described himself as conservative and Alexis is “more of a liberal type” who supported Barack Obama.

Excerpt: I apologise for mentioning that unemployment is 27.8pc in Greece, 26.3pc in Spain, 17.3pc in Cyprus, and 16.5pc in Portugal, or for pointing that it would be far worse had it not been for a mass exodus of EMU refugees. Nor was is proper to mention that Greek youth unemployment in 62.9pc. These are trivial details.

Excerpt: Management knew what was happening, but failed to correct it and even suppressed any discussion of the problems. Again, what should be done? Enter Don Berwick. Dr. Berwick was brought in to chair another committee — the National Advisory Group on the Safety of Patients in England, which issued another report and recommendations for action. Berwick’s report is a complete whitewash of the situation. Here are a few of their observations and my comments.

Excerpt: As it turns out, [David] Brooks, like yours truly, was born in Toronto. I think we can all agree that the only thing worse than a Canadian is a self-loathing Canadian: It’s bad enough that the first Canadian president of America [Ted Cruz]has to run around pretending he’ll be the first Hispanic president, but it’s outrageous that the New York Times’s only Canuck columnist should be the Roy Cohn of Canadians.

Excerpt: Despite promises of "hope and change" by our current president, more Americans than ever before now consider themselves to be "lower class." According to the General Social Survey, 8.4 percent of Americans now consider themselves to be "lower class," the highest percentage since the survey began in 1972. The majority of Americans have typically referred to themselves as "middle" or "working" class

Excerpt: According to reports, Alexis was arrested in Seattle in 2004 for shooting out the tires of a parked car. Apparently, he did so in a rage because he felt two construction workers had disrespected him.

"You are married to Four Wives Each, Each of Whom Comes with 70 VIrgins, and Each Virgin Comes with 70 Servant Girls. By Daniel Greenfield

Excerpt: A Tennessee high school has decided to revise its field trip policy after a group of freshmen were taken to an Islamic mosque where they were given copies of the Koran and while a student who opted out of the trip was given a worksheet that alleged Muslims treated their conquered people better than the United States treated minorities. … But some parents objected to the trips and wondered why the school would tour a mosque but not a Christian church or a Jewish synagogue.

Excerpt: On September 11, 2013, a public information officer for Palm Beach County, Florida named John Jamason posted a message on his personal Facebook page: “Never forget. There is no such thing as radical Islam. All Islam is radical. There may be Muslims who don’t practice their religion, much like others. The Quran is a book that preaches hate.” … Left unexamined in the controversy was whether or not what Jamason said was true.

Excerpt: Did you ever wonder how folks get picked to sit up on the podium, behind Obama, when he mounts that teleprompter program and begins to read it? Well, that little trick was revealed during Obama's 2012 campaign. It seems the way it works is Obama's handlers show up well before the speech, takes a look at the crowd and begins culling a nice mix of old and young, Black, White, Asian and Hispanic, and most adoring, then leads them to those podium seats to complete scene as the Anointed One prepares to speak. I was a bit amused to read that Obama's handlers had a bit of trouble filling those seats up on the stage on his last tour.

Excerpt: The threat of a government shutdown intensified Tuesday as House Republican leaders moved toward stripping funding from President Obama’s landmark health-care initiative and setting up a stalemate with the Democratic Senate. (The media will convince the public it is the Republicans’ fault, though of course either side could avoid it by giving in to the other. ~Bob.)

Excerpt: After a year of a stagnant economy, scandals, legislative failure, declining public approval, worries about the ObamaCare rollout, and the Syria fiasco, the Obama presidency appears to be on life support. The crackup of the coalition that elected and reelected him is no secret.

This is a moment that defines courage; the direction of our country is not good: Lawmakers can prove their backbone by defunding Obamacare. By Ben Carson

Excerpt: Our divided government was formed by diligent men who had studied the history of governmental structures throughout the world and wanted to design a system that would not succumb to the temptation to continuously expand its size and scope at the expense of the people. An important concept was the separation of powers with checks and balances among the three branches of government. … Ben S. Carson is professor emeritus of neurosurgery at JohnsHopkinsUniversity.

Excerpt: The United States has dropped 15 slots since 2000 in an annual ranking of economic freedom, from 2nd place to 17th place. (Can’t have economic freedom. Have to tell the surfs what to do or they might do what they want. ~Bob)

Excerpt: Bollywood performers, a Boston boat cruise with an open bar, gifts of cigars and wine — the vendor working on Illinois’s expensive new Medicaid information-technology system entertains public officials in style, according to sources in the Illinois government. (I am so done with living in Illinois. Packing. ~Bob.)

Move Over Detroit - The Fiscal Crisis in Chicago is Far Bigger. By Mike Shedlock

Excerpt: That’s the best-case scenario. The more realistic outcome is that each of those measures of debt and spending as a share of GDP will in fact be considerably worse, because our GDP will grow more slowly. We have entered the realm of the vicious circle: Debt and deficits will slow down economic growth, and slower economic growth will make our debt and deficits worse.

Excerpt: DeMille emphasizes the ruthlessness of the African and Muslim nations: he says, in writing about the revolution, "Men like that are taking over the world...what the hell has gone wrong[?]" In explaining it, DeMille noted, "They just shot three hundred members of the royal family. I wanted to write how Marxists typically tried to kill and eliminate the aristocracy. The brutality against the ruling class was a knee-jerk reaction, which unraveled that society. The violence can be a history lesson for today when all this cruelty is being inflicted on the Coptic Christians in Egypt and Syria.

Comedian Jay Leno: "USA Today had a big front-page feature on the new health care law, and said that the opposition to ObamaCare is at an all-time high. In fact, it's gotten so bad the president's now calling it BidenCare.

Excerpt: The House Ways and Means Committee says that, despite the IRS’s promises to destroy the donor lists it demanded from tea-party and other conservative groups, it has discovered those lists in the case files it has reviewed in the course of its investigation into the targeting scandal.

Excerpt: On Tuesday, an international panel of scientists and scholars released a report contradicting the findings of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), often considered the authority on the matter. The panel, called the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) cites thousands of peer-reviewed articles that the IPCC reportedly ignores and found “no empirical evidence . . . to substantiate the claim that 2 [degrees Celsius] of warming presents a threat to planetary ecologies or environments,” one finding of the IPCC’s work. They also found no evidence that “a warming will be more economically costly than an equivalent cooling,” another tenet of the IPCC.

Excerpt: Not so long ago the nation was cast into a terrible state of dread when a clown in an Obama mask performed in a rodeo. Many people had troubling telling apart the clown from the real Obama. Some thought the clown would do a better job of negotiating with Putin.

Excerpt: Despite the looming Oct. 1 launch of the Affordable Care Act’s marketplaces, Americans continue to discover that Obamcare is actually hazardous to their health, as demonstrated by a new video.

Excerpt: The pharmacy chain will join 17 other large employers on the Aon Hewitt Corporate Health Exchange as part of a growing movement to offer employees fixed dollar amounts to purchase their own plans on such exchanges. (If you like your plan—and you’re a member of Congress—you can keep it. ~Bob

Excerpt: IRS employees were “acutely” aware in 2010 that President Obama wanted to crack down on conservative organizations and were egged into targeting tea party groups by press reports mocking the emerging movement, according to an interim report being circulated Tuesday by House investigators.

Excerpt: Have you noticed the common thread among several mass killings and homeland security incidents lately? Time and again, it's the control freaks in Washington who have fallen down on their jobs, allowing crazies, creeps and criminals to roam free and wreak havoc while ignoring rampant red flags. Let's review:

Here We Go: House to Vote on Temprary Budget That Defunds Obamacare. By Guy Benson

Excerpt: Conservatives wanted a continuing resolution (CR) that defunds Obamacare, and now they'll get one (via National Review): Speaker John Boehner huddled with House Republicans this morning at the Capitol. According to several sources in the closed-door meeting, the speaker confirmed his plan to bring a continuing resolution to the floor that funds the government and defunds Obamacare

The Great Oil Conspiracy: How the U.S. Government Hid the Nazi Discovery of Abiotic Oil from the American People

At the end of World War II, U.S. intelligence agents confiscated thousands of Nazi documents on what was known as the “Fischer-Tropsch Process”—a series of equations developed by German chemists unlocking the secrets of how oil is formed. When the Nazis took power, Germany had resolved to develop enough synthetic oil to wage war successfully, even without abundant national oil reserves. For decades, these confiscated German documents remained largely ignored in a United States where petro-geologists and petro-chemists were convinced that oil was a “fossil fuel” created by ancient decaying biological debris. (I’m unconvinced. ~Bob.)

More Murders in 18 Days Than Yearly Total of Eight States. By Christine Rousselle

Excerpt: Chicago has experienced 21 homicides so far this September. The following states all had fewer homicides in the 12 months of 2011 (the most recent year statistics are available) than Chicago has had in the 18 days of September so far:

Excerpt: With a shrinking circle of trust inside the White House, Obama is having trouble establishing trust outside with once reliable factions: grass-roots Democrats and liberals in Congress. As Peter Baker wrote in The Times, the president is finding himself increasingly “frustrated” by the defiance of Democrats who are despairing of his passive, reactive leadership.

Excerpt: Prosecutors allege that E-biofuels actually wasn’t producing biofuel. Instead, it was purchasing fuel and selling it to customers as its own product for a profit. E-biofuels also fraudulently collected on about $35 million in federal tax breaks reserved for biofuel producers, according to charging documents.

Excerpt: In recent weeks, disgruntled Democrats, particularly liberals, have bolted from the White House on issues like National Security Agency surveillance policies, a planned military strike on Syria and the potential choice of Lawrence H. Summers to lead the Federal Reserve. In private, they often sound exasperated describing Mr. Obama’s operation; in public, they are sometimes only a little more restrained. They complain the White House has not consulted enough and failed to assert leadership.

Excerpt: It is hard to think of any election in recent times in Europe which has mattered more to more people than the one that takes place in Germany on Sunday. This election, however, is important not just for Germans, who will naturally be the people most directly affected by the outcome. In some respects the result will be just as closely watched across the whole of the eurozone in which Germany is the dominant economy – and in particular by the arc of southern European nations which have been compelled to enact austerity budgets since 2009 to comply with northern notions of fiscal rectitude.

Excerpt: How bad was Barack Obama’s timing yesterday on his speech attacking Republicans for “hurting” Americans while the Navy Yard shooting was still under way? All of the major networks — including MSNBC — cut away from the speech after Obama finished his remarks on the shooting, which means that most missed the partisan attack that followed, except for the flabbergasted reporters.

This Is What Personal Responsibility – And Justice – Look Like In Action

Excerpt: After Obama's election in 2009 a small grocery store/convenience store in Florida changed its name to the Obama Express. Several other stores across the country did the same thing. One of those was a location in Baltimore, Maryland. Now, in 2013, the Maryland outlet is under investigation, accused of illegally trafficking in food stamps. (Well named. ~Bob)

Excerpt: Another slave trade, however, the Islamic one, remains a mysterious aspect in the history of the black diaspora. Fourteen centuries old, this version of slavery spread throughout Africa, the Middle East, Europe, India and China. It is the legacy of this trade that continues to ravage Sudan and Mauritania today.

Excerpt: In 2006, President Obama gave a speech condemning the culture of lobbying in DC, holding up as an example a closed-door deal the then-reigning GOP made with a clutch of health care lobbyists. Seven years later, the front page of the NYT has a big story about “dozens” of former administration officials moving into lobbying positions:

Excerpt: Out there, in a ramshackle outpost somewhere on the fringes of the map, brave Americans abandoned by their government are dying on a rooftop. But here in the metropolis the dazzling klieg-light luster of Mia Farrow and Jill Abramson plunges all else into shadow. If you're not looking at the world through Mia Farrow's blue-tinted glasses, if you're in Beijing or Moscow, Ankara or Canberra, it's the shadow that everyone sees, very clearly — the sepulchral Habsburgian twilight of a dimming power enjoying its last waltz.

Excerpt: Poland has pulled a destructive stunt worthy of Argentina. It is seizing half of the Polish people’s private retirement funds. All government bonds in these pension-plan portfolios are being forcibly transferred to the government.

Excerpt: At 29, Greenslate is an able-bodied man with no dependents who receives $200 a month in CalFresh, as food stamps are known here. He and his band practice for several hours a day. He qualifies for aid because he has little to no income, until an album by his band — Rattlife — hits it big.

Liberals Fear They Will Run Out Of Victims: Washington Post/New York Times Ponder Affirmative Action for the Ugly. By Daniel Greenfield

Excerpt: And now it’s time to expand the categories and start the ugly affirmative action lawsuits.: 'The galloping injustice of “lookism” has not escaped psychologists, economists, sociologists, and legal scholars. Stanford law professor Deborah L. Rhode’s 2010 book, “The Beauty Bias,” lamented “the injustice of appearance in life and law,” while University of Texas, Austin economist Daniel Hamermesh’s 2011 “Beauty Pays,” recently out in paperback, traced the concrete benefits of attractiveness, including a $230,000 lifetime earnings advantage over the unattractive.'

Excerpt: From Los AngelesCounty: 'A projected $650 million in welfare benefits will be distributed to illegal alien parents in 2013, county officials said Monday.'

That is just in one county. 'Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich announced the latest figures from the Department of Public Social Services, which showed more than $376 million in CalWORKs benefits and food stamps combined have been distributed through July to illegal alien parents for their native-born children.' [Good old CalWORKS. I couldn't get onto that because I didn't have an illegitimate child. The CalWORKS employees got $11 an hour to 'work' at Los AngelesCityCollege. My classmate Consuela was one them. She said she had plenty of time to do her homework because she never had any work to do at her job. I liked Consuela, I mean I really did. My most memorable picture of her is that gentle smile of hers as she moseyed across the campus snapping her fingers to the tune on her MP3 player. I still haven't got an MP3 player. Love, Kate.]

Excerpt: More Americans view Russia as unfriendly or an enemy of the United States than as an ally or friendly nation for the first time in 15 years, marking a significant change from as recently as June of this year. A majority of Americans view Russian President Vladimir Putin unfavorably for the first time since he originally took office in 2000.

3/4 Sentenced on Terror Charges in United Kingdom are Muslims. By Daniel Greenfield

Under Secretary of State Patrick Kennedy: Libya is not allowing U.S. law enforcement into the country to arrest individuals connected with the Benghazi attack: "The government of Lybia is not in control to that degree."

Excerpt: Kennedy explained ever since the events of September 11, 2012 the country has taken a “serious turn for the worse.” Journalists, according to Kennedy, still have access to the country but the Libyan government’s authority is so diminished it is incapable of allowing the United States in to arrest people:

Excerpt: According to the Middle Eastern security sources who have spoken to WND, arming efforts at the U.S. facility shifted focus to aiding the insurgency targeting President Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria after the fall of Libyan dictator Muammar Gadhafi.

'We Have The Bad Guys In The Halls Of Power': Erick Stakelbeck reveals Muslim Brotherhood's quiet invasion of America

EXCERPT: We have the bad guys, the Brotherhood, in the halls of power and in our lawmakers’ ears.” Over the course of the interview, Stakelbeck discusses the Brotherhood, which was was formed in Egypt in 1928, later cooperated with Nazi Germany to extend the slaughtering of Jews, and gave rise to both al-Qaida and Hamas, the terror organization that calls itself the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. Now, Stakelbeck points out, the Brotherhood is extending its branches throughout Europe and the United States.

Excerpt: Muslim Brotherhood operatives have direct access to the White House. They include Arif Alikhan, assistant secretary of Homeland Security for policy development; Rashad Hussain, the U.S. special envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference; Salam al-Marayati, co-founder of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC); Imam Mohamed Magid, president of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA); and Eboo Patel, a member of President Obama’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based Neighborhood Partnerships

Excerpt: Obama was firing commanders for the same reason that he was unable to make wartime decisions. He had become infamous for dithering over every conflict, demanding a countless stream of alternative plans, poring over everything, postponing a decision, and then like a student diving into a report at the last minute, making an abrupt and often disastrous final decision.

Excerpt: Style points? Seriously? Style points? That’s what President Obama thinks the criticism of his zigzag Syria policy amounts to? As presidential spin, this is insulting. As presidential conviction — if this is what he really believes — it’s scary.

Excerpt: President Obama has now sabotaged four decades of stability in the Middle East. First he pulled down the biggest pillar of peace, the Mubarak regime in Egypt; then he bombed Libya into the Dark Ages; and now he has paraded “My Army” and “My Navy” against the Assad regime in Syria, which is just as evil as the rebels. The one thing Obama has never faced honestly is what everybody knows to be the real threat – namely mullahs with nukes.

Excerpt: President Obama claimed in his Tuesday night address last week that the Russian initiative "has the potential to remove the threat of chemical weapons in the hands of [Syrian] President Assad." In less than forty-eight hours, the administration turned from advocating what Secretary Kerry called" unbelievably limited" military strikes, to a diplomatic alternative that is literally "unbelievable."

Excerpt: While many were fixated on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent letter to the American people, another letter from another Russian leader — this one directly addressed to the U.S. president — was missed. On September 10, Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill issued a letter addressed to “His Excellency Mr. Barack Obama, President, United States.” Whether one wishes to interpret the letter as a product of politics or sincerity, it accurately highlights the plight of Syria’s Christians, especially in the context of a larger civilizational struggle. (US supplying rebels weeks ago, though “authorized” to aid terrorists just a few days ago by POTUS. They continue to burn churches, destroying ancient cultures, killing and raping Christians. Why do you think POTUS has such an amazing smile, per Politico. –Barb)